Free The Story of a New Name (The Neapolitan Novels) by Elena Ferrante

that no matter what I said or did to reassure him he wouldn’t believe me. I decided to take the offensive. I told him to follow the example of Enzo: He’s confident, I whispered, if he has to go he goes, he doesn’t whine, even if he’s just gotten engaged to Carmela. Whereas you’re complaining for no reason, yes, for no reason, Antò, especially since you won’t go, because if Stefano Carracci got an exemption as the son of a widowed mother, certainly you will, too.
    That slightly aggressive, slightly affectionate tone eased him. But before saying goodbye he repeated, in embarrassment, “Ask your friend.”
    “She’s your friend, too.”
    “Yes, but you ask.”
    The next day I talked to Lila about it, but she didn’t know anything about her husband’s military service; reluctantly she promised that she would find out.
    She didn’t do it immediately, as I’d hoped. There were constant tensions with Stefano and with Stefano’s family. Maria had told her son that his wife spent too much money. Pinuccia made trouble about the new grocery, she said that she wasn’t going to be involved, if anyone it should be her sister-in-law. Stefano silenced his mother and sister, but in the end he reproached his wife for her excessive spending, and tried to find out whether she might if necessary be willing to work in the new store.
    Lila in that period became, even in my eyes, particularly evasive. She said that she would spend less, she readily agreed to work in the grocery, but meanwhile she spent more than before and if previously she had stopped in at the new shop out of curiosity or duty she no longer did even that. Now that the bruises on her face were gone, she had an urgent desire to go out, especially in the morning, when I was at school.
    She would go for a walk with Pinuccia, and they vied to see who was better dressed, who could buy more useless things. Usually Pina won, mainly because, with a lot of coyly childish looks, she managed to get money from Rino, who felt obliged to prove that he was more generous than his brother-in-law.
    “I work all day,” said the fiancé to the fiancée. “Have fun for me, too.”
    And proudly casual, in front of the workers and his father, he pulled out of his pants pocket a crumpled fistful of money, offered it to Pina, and immediately afterward made a teasing gesture of giving some to his sister, too.
    His behavior irritated Lila, like a gust of wind that causes a door to slam and knocks objects off a shelf. But she also saw signs that the shoe factory was finally taking off, and all in all she was pleased that Cerullo shoes were now displayed in many shops in the city, the spring models were selling well, the reorders were increasing. As a result Stefano had taken over the basement under the factory and had transformed it into a warehouse and workshop, while Fernando and Rino had had to hire another assistant in a hurry and sometimes even worked at night.
    Naturally there were disputes. The shoe store that the Solaras had undertaken to open in Piazza dei Martiri had to be furnished at Stefano’s expense, and he, alarmed by the fact that no written contract had ever been drawn up, squabbled a lot with Marcello and Michele. But now it seemed that they were arriving at a private agreement that would set out in black and white the figure (slightly inflated) that Carracci intended to invest in the furnishings. And Rino was very satisfied with the result: while his brother-in-law put down the money, he acted like the boss, as if he had done it himself.
    “If things continue like this, next year we’ll get married,” he promised his fiancée, and one morning Pina decided to go to the same dressmaker who had made Lila’s dress, just to look.
    The dressmaker welcomed them cordially, then, since she was crazy about Lila, asked her to describe the wedding in detail, and insisted on having a large photograph of her in the wedding dress. Lila had one printed for her and she and